The Moving Blade

by Michael Pronko

  “What did the autopsy say?”

  “There wasn’t one.”

  Hiroshi could just hear the faint sound of the megaphone from the march outside. It had been going on quietly in the background all along, but with all the back and forth about swords, he had not even noticed. He looked out the window.

  Suzuki said, “They’ve been by every day. You can almost set your watch by them.”

  “The renewal of the Japan-US treaties is next week. They’re warming up.”

  “They want something new when they lose touch with the old.”

  Hiroshi put away the photos and in the politest Japanese said, “Thank you for your help.”

  “Actually, some of us dealers set up a hotline to stop swords from being exported outside of Japan. It’s a national heritage issue, I know, but the police have not followed up on any case we dealers have called in about.”

  “I’ll ask around,” Hiroshi said. “I have to make some inquiries about that anyway.”

  Suzuki nodded his thanks and pulled the soft cloth from the counter and folded it carefully. “By the way, if Takamatsu is suspended, he might be interested in delivery work. It’s extremely well paid.”

  “Takamatsu seems to be making a lot as a private detective already.”

  “The purchaser of this sword would be a good person to talk with.”

  “How so?”

  “Swords are a good investment, especially if you handle a lot of cash.”

  “The swords are a way of laundering money?”

  “Sword owners usually have as much information as money.”

  The shop door opened, letting in the protestors’ fading shouts along with a salaryman in a business suit. Suzuki turned his attention to the new customer.

  Walking to the station, Hiroshi cut through the tail end of the protest line, which was much longer than he thought. He read a few of the signs, but most had passed by, and wondered who made up the concise rhythmic slogans they chanted.

  As he walked, he thought about his computer and the comfort of his office. He wondered if he should go back to the office or catch up with Sakaguchi or go talk with Jamie. He entered Shinjuku Station, and walked slowly along a low-ceilinged passageway that ran under a dozen platforms for different train lines, deciding which one to take.

  Chapter 8

  Along the main street of Jinbocho, store windows displayed journals, textbooks, magazines, manga, chapbooks, maps and prints—each store with its own specialty. Library carts, fold-up tables and string-tied stacks of used books spilled onto the sidewalk. Everywhere, people stood reading. Sakaguchi stopped in front of one book propped in a window that would have saved him years as a beat cop—a preparation manual for the detective exam. If he had come to Jinbocho, if he had known such a book existed, he might not have failed the exam six straight years, finally passing the seventh time, never knowing why.

  Sakaguchi walked on to the corner of the street and stopped under a ginkgo tree that spread over a large carved wood signboard: “Endo Brothers Bookstore 1889.” The sign’s gold leaf characters flaked off the worn wood below. Inside the front window, woodblock prints, matted but unframed, were stacked neatly in rows, hundreds of them with one propped for display on top, the date and artist penciled on the matting.

  Sakaguchi shook his head as he looked past the prints towards the rows and rows of books inside. Hiroshi should have taken this assignment instead. Sakaguchi couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a bookstore. Hiroshi read all day, even if most of it was numbers on a screen.

  A bell rang as Sakaguchi yanked open the door. He had to turn sideways to shuffle down the narrow aisle of densely packed books. At the far back of the store, three men stood by a counter. The man facing out from behind the counter was dressed in a dark tweed jacket and black shirt. His clothes and his shaved bald head contrasted with the other man’s long white hair, jeans and cable knit sweater. They had the same round face with almost the same nose and eyes and chin, the same well-fed frames. Twins, Sakaguchi realized, or brothers at least.

  To the side, a third man leaned on the counter, one leg propped on a stack of old encyclopedias. He was thin as a sumo judge’s gunbai fan, with stringy grey hair down both sides of his sunken face. The taut pucker of smoker’s wrinkles held his last comment unfinished as they turned silently towards Sakaguchi.

  From his pocket, Sakaguchi pulled out a flash drive with copies of the files found on the dead man in Golden Gai. He held up the USB drive in his thick hand. “I’m wondering if you could tell me more about these. I’m Detective Sakaguchi, homicide.”

  “A cop,” the thin man said.

  “And you two are the Endo brothers? Twins?” They nodded. Sakaguchi turned to the thin man. “And you are?”

  The thin man leaned forward and said, “Books never killed anybody. You’re in the wrong place.” He pulled around his walking cane to ratchet himself forward. His right hand hung loose, as if unstrung.

  When none of the three said anything more, Sakaguchi pulled out his cellphone and thumbed through the address book, trying a trick he’d learned from Takamatsu. “Are your accounts in order? I have a colleague in the tax office.”

  The two brothers glanced at each other, each waiting for the other to respond.

  “We’re the owners. I’m Shinichi,” the brother in jeans said.

  “And I’m Seiichi,” the brother in black said.

  “Aren’t those both names for first sons?” Sakaguchi asked.

  The two nodded together. “We were born the same day, but our mother never told us who came out first. She didn’t want a hierarchy.”

  Sakaguchi looked at the thin, angry man leaning on the books.

  “And this is Higa,” the twins said in unison.

  The prong of Higa’s belt buckle poked through a handmade hole, plaiting his pants around his scrawny waist. His jacket was as yellowed and worn as his tobacco-stained teeth.

  “Unusual name. Where’s that from? Okinawa?”

  Higa nodded. Sakaguchi pocketed his cellphone and pulled out his name card. One of the twins took it without handing him theirs.

  “Here are the prints.” Sakaguchi handed the USB drive to Seiichi who looked for an OK from his brother before sliding it into a laptop behind the counter. Seiichi turned the laptop around. Shinichi hiked up his jeans and leaned over the counter to see. The embraces and ecstasies of the woodblock prints drew no reaction from either brother.

  Higa said, “Those ukiyoe masters knew how to conceal politics in erotics. Power and pleasure have never been so well matched since. Censorship nowadays—”

  “Higa, please,” said the Endo twins, at the same time.

  “Who would have these? Who would buy and sell them?” Sakaguchi leaned forward.

  The Endo brothers looked at each other, barely concealing that they knew if not who exactly, at least who would.

  Sakaguchi scrunched his sumo wrestler’s face into a ball and leaned forward. “This is a murder investigation.”

  Higa pushed off the counter, leaning on his cane. His right leg was shorter than his left and his foot turned out at an angle when he set it down on the floor. “Someone once said all brave men are in jail.”

  “Higa!” Shinichi interrupted. “Save it for the next book, can you?”

  Higa tried to say more but started coughing, doubling over with a hard, raspy wheeze. Higa caught his breath, about to speak, but his coughing only got worse. Shinichi stepped over to pat Higa on the back and put his cane in his left hand, as his right didn’t have any force. Shinichi started walking Higa around the store and Higa’s coughing eased as he hobbled down the shelves.

  Seiichi whispered, “Higa hates police, but he’s one of our most prolific authors. We always publish his works, but he’s not always easy to take.”

  “He’s a writer?” Sakaguchi asked. “You’re a publisher?”

  “Since those Koza riots in 1970, we’ve published about a book a year of his. I thought old age and
bad health would slow him down, but his ideas and his prose keep getting stronger.”

  “Make any money?” Sakaguchi asked.

  “He’s got a loyal readership.” Seiichi pulled a thin volume from a shelf and handed it to Sakaguchi, The Okinawa Solution by Tetsuya Higa. “This is one of his best, or least vitriolic. Please take it. He wrote it after he was beaten by police during the riots. That’s why he limps.”

  Sakaguchi tucked the thin book into his inside jacket pocket with a bow of thanks. “So, what can you tell me about these?”

  Seiichi clicked back to a print of naked men with engorged penises laughing as they ran towards a finish line. “There are only two or three of this print in the world. And this one,” he clicked to a fleshy tangle of three lovers, kimonos as open as the mouth of the voyeur watching from the side, “Is almost certainly an early Koryusai. Very rare, less than a dozen left.”

  Sakaguchi nodded. “How do I find who might have these?”

  Shinichi returned from the walk around the shelves with a calmer Higa.

  Seiichi said, “There is really only one specialist who would know.”

  “Where do I find him?”

  “You can’t. He just died.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Bernard Mattson,” Shinichi said.

  Sakaguchi kept the surprise he felt deep inside his well-padded sumo face.

  “His funeral was yesterday,” Seiichi said.

  “So, he bought and sold prints with you?” Sakaguchi wondered if rare prints were expensive enough to kill for. Surely, the trade was controlled, refined and traditional.

  “Mattson was going to publish with us,” Shinichi said.

  “Two books,” Seiichi said.

  “About shunga?”

  “One book was, but the other…” Shinichi let Seiichi finish his sentence. “…we don’t know exactly other than it was about SOFA.”

  Sakaguchi frowned at the foreign-sounding pronunciation of “SOFA,” then realized they meant The Status of Forces Agreement with America. Sakaguchi could recite the list of crimes committed by American servicemen protected by SOFA—gang rape of a sixteen-year-old girl, murder-rape of a twenty-year-old—and the many problems with the bases—helicopter crashes, car crashes, weapons misfires—but that did not seem a reason to rob Mattson’s place, much less try to silence him.

  “Tell him,” Shinichi nodded at Higa. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “I’m trying to find who killed Mattson,” Sakaguchi assured Higa.

  Higa looked away. “I saw him on NHK programs all the time, but before last year, I met him only once, on a panel an Okinawan peace group set up. We were on opposite sides debating nuclear-armed American warships docking in Japan. He showed up late and very drunk.”

  Sakaguchi nodded for Higa to go on.

  “I almost walked off the stage because it would be no pleasure to win the debate. He took swigs from a half-full bottle of awamori liquor with a habu snake inside.” Higa cleared his throat and resettled his leg on the stack of books.

  “So, what happened?” Shinichi prompted.

  Higa let a brief smile flutter around his smoker’s lips. “He was the most brilliant speaker I’ve ever heard. Even in that condition. He spoke in support of the status quo, yes, but he explained the issue from both sides so well, I barely got to speak. Genuine criticism is rare from an insider like him. Usually it’s total defense of the status quo.”

  Seiichi nodded for Higa to continue. Sakaguchi listened closely.

  “He spoke without notes, but rolled off details that I would have had to look up. He was a passionate speaker, in fluent Japanese, with a command of data and a deep knowledge of history. He quoted Groucho Marx one minute and Heike Monogatari the next. So I let him talk.”

  Sakaguchi said, “And then you asked him to publish?”

  Higa chuckled drily. “No, I went home to lick my wounds and rewrite the book I was working on. I never thought anything more about him until he called me last year. I don’t know how he got my home number. I keep it secret.”

  The brothers nodded for Higa to continue.

  “I was ready for him to be drunk, but he was clean, sober, calm and focused.” Higa cleared his rattling throat. “We talked for hours that day in a Ginza kissaten, drinking straight black coffee. He asked if I wanted to edit a book of his about the SOFA agreements. He had a new vision of it and wanted to lay the groundwork for new agreements. I was taken aback because there’s been almost no revision since they were written. I brought him here to the Endo brothers.”

  “Our publishing business has been taking off,” Shinichi said.

  “Just when selling old books and prints was declining,” Seiichi said.

  “Mattson knew how to connect the dots.” Higa coughed, but took a breath and didn’t cough again. “He wrote as well as he spoke, knew both languages, both cultures.”

  “What did he write?” Sakaguchi asked. “What was he going to write?”

  Higa looked at the wall and shook his head, coughing from deep in his lungs. “I didn’t even see a draft. He wanted to finish the whole thing first. It got so long, we had to set up a second, condensed version that people could read quickly.”

  Seiichi said, “Mattson knew where to find the inside info all the way back to the first drafts in 1959. He had his own carrel in the national archives. He knew all the pieces, all the documents and discussions and meetings that formed the basis of the East Asian Alliance.”

  Shinichi said, “The last time I talked to him, a couple weeks ago, he said he had only a few more details to fill in. He was supposed to deliver the manuscript the day of his funeral.”

  “So, where’s the manuscript?” Sakaguchi demanded. “We need it to see…”

  The twins shook their heads and shrugged, their eyes cast down.

  Higa snorted and cleared his phlegm-filled lungs. “Only Mattson could write the truth about the SOFA agreement.”

  “Why’s that?” Sakaguchi asked.

  “He wrote the original.”

  Chapter 9

  Hiroshi listened from the entryway of Mattson’s home before walking into the room where he’d talked with Jamie the night before. There was no sign of Jamie, but Ueno looked up from the too-small sofa in the living room with sleeplessness written across his face. Late morning light filtered in through the windows of Mattson’s living room and spilled over the turmoil of furniture and antiques.

  Ueno pushed himself up and stretched. “I thought someone would come earlier.”

  “She upstairs?” Hiroshi asked.

  Ueno shrugged, stretched and plodded towards the door. He pulled on his coat and slipped into his shoes.

  “I’m not in charge of the rotation,” Hiroshi called after Ueno, but he closed the door without responding.

  Hiroshi spent the next hour looking around the study and living room. He tried to imagine the robbers at work and held up the photos of Mattson’s corpse against the spots where they were taken, feeling queasy again at the scene. He called the tech guys at the station to come get the stripped-clean computer and see what they could do. He wondered why they’d left it.

  “Good morning,” Jamie called from the doorway.

  “I didn’t hear you come down,” Hiroshi said. “Sleep well?”

  “I took a sleeping pill my mother gave me. I couldn’t wake up,” she said, yawning.

  Even her yawn was gorgeous. She looked robustly American in jeans and a sweatshirt. Her fine nose and delicate lips looked even better in the daylight. Hiroshi looked away, and then followed her when she padded into the kitchen.

  “It’s a little bit creepy eating my dead father’s food,” she said, opening the refrigerator. “But there’s nothing in here anyway.”

  “We can go out. It’s almost lunch time.”

  “Let me take a shower.” Jamie went upstairs and came back down in her father’s bathrobe. The bath was at the back of the kitchen.

  From the living room, Hiroshi c
ould hear the heavy door to the bathing area roll shut. He called Akiko to tell her to send prosecutors a preliminary report on an embezzlement case at a joint French-Japanese insurance company and to put off anyone else who called. Before he could finish, he heard the bath door rolling open and Jamie calling, “Detective, detective?” He told Akiko he’d call back and hurried through the kitchen to the bathing area.

  Jamie stood wrapped in her father’s bathrobe staring at the water heater knobs. “There’s only cold water,” she said.

  “You have to turn on the gas first. Here, let me.”

  Hiroshi edged past her into the changing room as Jamie stepped aside. Hiroshi couldn’t quite reach the knobs in the tiled bath, so he pulled off his socks to keep them dry. He leaned down beside the large cedar tub to crank the spark handle and twist the heat to high.

  “When I was a little girl, I used to be scared to bathe alone in here,” Jamie said, re-tightening the belt on her robe. Hiroshi stood trying to think what to say to that, the two of them awkward in the small changing room, his socks dangling from his hands.

  The doorbell rang, scattering the moment.

  “I’ll get that,” Hiroshi said.

  “Thanks,” Jamie sang out after him.

  At the door were two foreigners, a square-shouldered woman and a tall, blonde-haired guy who looked like the Marlboro man. The woman’s big-jawed face held a friendly smile. Her short haircut, bulging briefcase, and pinstripe suit were all business. The tall man’s smile broke into two dimpled lines along his tanned face. His eyes were so light blue, they seemed focused far away. He wore a leather coat over a camelhair jacket and turtleneck sweater.

  The woman looked at Hiroshi strangely, noticing but not asking why he was holding his socks in his hands.

  “Are you a relative of Bernard Mattson?” Hiroshi asked in English.

  “I’m from the American embassy. My name is Pamela Carica.” She pulled a name card out of a small leather holder and held it out to Hiroshi.

  The man pulled his name card from inside his leather coat and said, “I work liaison through the embassy. My name’s Trey Gladius. Bernie and I go way back.”